{"id":10123,"date":"2024-05-29T22:34:28","date_gmt":"2024-05-29T21:34:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=10123"},"modified":"2024-05-29T22:34:28","modified_gmt":"2024-05-29T21:34:28","slug":"rise-of-the-powers-of-x-5-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=10123","title":{"rendered":"Rise of the Powers of X #5 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>RISE OF THE POWERS OF X #5<\/strong>
\n“Now and Forever”<\/strong>
\nWriter: Kieron Gillen<\/strong>
\nArtist: Luciano Vecchio<\/strong>
\nColour artist: David Curiel<\/strong>
\nLetterer: Clayton Cowles<\/strong>
\nDesign: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen<\/strong>
\nEditor: Jordan D White<\/strong><\/p>\n

COVER \/ PAGE 1. <\/strong>Jean Grey as the reborn Phoenix.<\/p>\n

PAGE 2. <\/strong>Phoenix is reborn in the White Hot Room.<\/em><\/p>\n

Or the “Once-White Once-Hot Room”, as the narrator has it. Issue #4 ended with Jean on her funeral pyre as it was set alight, and the other Dominions telling Enigma that if the Phoenix returned then they would answer his call for help. That plot thread then gets picked up in X-Men: Forever <\/em>#2-4. In Forever<\/em> #2, we see Hope lighting the pyre, and Jean being restored, but a confused Phoenix Force resisting its rebirth. In Forever<\/em> #3-4, Hope and Legion destroy the Phoenix, apparently freeing up Hope to be reborn as the infant Phoenix (the small bird seen here), and completing the Phoenix’s personal time-loop. Meanwhile, Jean prevents Enigma from interfering with Hope’s origin story, and turns out to be responsible for Hope’s mother’s pregnancy.<\/p>\n

We’re more or less picking up directly from that issue, although there’s no obvious reason why Jean is emerging again from her pyre again. At any rate, whatever the reason, she’s back in the classic green Phoenix costume from the 1970s.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Krakoan words in the embers are LIFE and FIRE.<\/p>\n

PAGES 3-4. <\/strong>Phoenix explains its connection to mutantkind.<\/em><\/p>\n

“You want to feed. I won’t let you.”<\/strong> This refers to Phoenix’s last line of dialogue in X-Men: Forever<\/em> #4, which was obviously teasing some sort of destruction. However, Phoenix apparently means that it restores itself to full power by merging with the souls of the mutant dead.<\/p>\n

These are the souls from the Waiting Room,<\/strong> who were shown to have vanished in Resurrection of Magneto<\/em> #1. That story implied that these deceased mutants had simply given up waiting in light of the fall of Krakoa, but the suggestion here is that they’ve been drawn to the White Hot Room to become part of the Phoenix. Whether they continue to exist as individual spirits within the Phoenix is ambiguous, but there’s no obvious reason why they can’t be both.<\/p>\n

At any rate, Phoenix is essentially claiming the White Hot Room as a mutant afterlife, and claiming that Phoenix itself is a collective entity formed by all of mutantkind. Assorted explanations have been given over the years of what the Phoenix is or represents, usually in terms of a more general creative force – but attempting to reconcile all the different explanations of Phoenix has always been a hopeless exercise. Immortal X-Men<\/em> has previously referred to the White Hot Room being specifically tied to mutants, and this explains why.<\/p>\n

There are other obvious attractions to this interpetation of Phoenix. It ties to resurrection as a theme of Krakoan life and justifies the White Hot Room as effectively a mutant heaven, where the many background mutants get to live in eternity. It also makes Phoenix into a collective entity, and thus a Dominion of sorts, on Jonathan Hickman’s original definitions (though the scale would be a bit small for that).<\/p>\n

“Now and forever.”<\/strong> Also the title of the story, and referencing the line with which Phoenix introduces herself in X-Men<\/em> #101 (“Now and forever, I am Phoenix”). Here, it becomes a reference to Phoenix transcending time in the same way that Dominions do.<\/p>\n

PAGE 5. <\/strong>Recap and credits.<\/p>\n

PAGE 6. <\/strong>The mutants on Earth celebrate their victory over Orchis.<\/em><\/p>\n

Basically bringing this book’s readers up to speed on what happened at the end of Fall of the House of X<\/em>.<\/p>\n

PAGES 7-9. <\/strong>The other Dominions refuse to help Enigma.<\/em><\/p>\n

Enigma’s theory was that since Phoenix had destroyed Dominions in at least one timelines, the other Dominions would be bound to help him dispose of her. This turns out to be a red herring, since the Dominions show up simply to confirm that they have no interest in this whatsoever. This scene also resolves the outstanding plot question of why Enigma becoming a Dominion is such a unique threat, when there are supposed to be loads of Dominions. Why would he be an effective god when the others haven’t been? The answer is simply that proper<\/em> Dominions, who have truly formed collective minds and freed themselves from time and space, have better things to do than go back and worry about the worlds they left behind. Enigma would only be able to act as a god – and only has any interest in acting as a god – because he hasn’t truly achieved a Dominion state of mind, he’s only taken on Dominion power levels. The same goes for all of the other Dominions who were killed by Phoenix in other timelines.<\/p>\n

You might question why the other Dominions even bother showing up to give this explanation, but the answer seems to be that they regard Phoenix as an entity powerful enough to be worth acknowledging, though entirely separate from them. They regard the timestream (which they’re outside) as her domain.<\/p>\n

PAGES 10-11. <\/strong>Professor X and Moira talk.<\/em><\/p>\n

We saw Moira last issue, watching Professor X as a prisoner of Orchis, but not approaching him. Since that issue, Orchis have been defeated in Fall of the House of X<\/em> #5.<\/p>\n

For their conversation, Professor X recreates the bench from House of X<\/em> #2 where he met her, and she told him about her previous lives. The roles here are reversed.<\/p>\n

The panel in silhouette on page 11 is a flashback to Xavier nearly killing Moira in issue #3, before being talked out of it.<\/p>\n

PAGE 12. <\/strong>Phoenix fights Enigma through the timestream.<\/em><\/p>\n

All you really need to know about this scene is that Enigma is entering various points in X-Men history and trying to alter them so as to change Jean’s history and undermine her; she keeps changing everything back before it can make a difference. Most of the scenes show a character with a small red Enigma logo on them, indicating who’s being interfered with. None of these are technically flashbacks, since they’re versions of events that didn’t<\/em> happen. But the individual panels are as follows:<\/p>\n